Mixed Messages About Troop Pullout
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, Military, WarI mentioned yesterday that the Administration had to start getting their messaging straight when it comes to withdrawing troops. Because while the military is saying one thing, the White House is saying something different. Especially since we’re talking about pulling nearly 1/4th of our armed forces in Iraq (approx 30,000).
And from the looks of this Washington Post article, I’m not the only one who’s scratching my head.
The Bush administration has sent seemingly conflicting signals in recent days over the duration of the U.S. deployment to Iraq, openly discussing contingency plans to withdraw as many as 30,000 of 138,000 troops by spring, then cautioning against expectations of any early pullout. Finally yesterday, President Bush dismissed talk of a drawdown as just “speculation and rumors” and warned against “withdrawing before the mission is complete.”If the public was left confused, it may be no more unsure than the administration itself, as some government officials involved in Iraq policy privately acknowledge.
And why are we beginning to pull out of Iraq?
Administration officials have all but given up any hope of militarily defeating the insurgents with U.S. forces, instead aiming only to train and equip enough Iraqi security forces to take over the fight themselves. At the same time, they believe that the mission depends on building a new political infrastructure, a project facing its most decisive test in the next three days as deeply divided Iraqis struggle to draft a constitution by a Monday deadline.
This definitely flies in the face of all the good news we’ve been hearing about the insurgency starting to fold. Is this simply journalistic bluster or the reality on the ground? Honestly, I fear it’s the latter, especially given reports that their bombs are becoming more sophisticated thanks to possible help from Iran.
In any event, let’s hope that the Iraqi forces and people really are ready to defend themselves when we finally do leave. We owe them that much. True, we did give them their freedom, but freedom without order has the potential to break out into civil war, and that would be a complete disaster. Of course, that’s the risk you run when you attempt to build nations in your own image.
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 13th, 2005 and is filed under Foreign Policy, Military, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
August 13th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
WaPo (and confused ilk) have lost the link to Dictionary.com.
Main Entry: contingency plan
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: a program of action designed for handling **possible** future circumstances or events [my emphasis]
One **possible** future circumstance includes a scenario where the Iraqis have in fact developed border controls, information networks and military and police forces capable of controlling the terrorist insurgency. That’s the actual goal here, so discussing the possibility shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. At the same time it can hardly be seen as a fait accompli, as the rest of the “article” suggests.
WaPo is hardly “scratching its head”. It’s blaring the standard Chicken Little, sky-is-falling and the-Bush-administration-doesn’t-know-what-it’s-doing claptrap spewed pretty much 24/7 in both tone and content by AP, Reuters, NYT and CNN (as well, ahem, as on way too many blogs). Note how the “article” (analysis, actually) jumps from casting aspersions to public consensus – the consensus the media’s been working tirelessly to build for over two years.
But hey, if garbage “analysis” like this also serves to confuse the enemy, that will partially make up for its self-serving mischaracterizations.
August 13th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
Well said, Goy!
Justin, what is the “good news” we’ve been hearing about? In the NYT, the WaPo, the LAT; CNN, BBC … or where, exactly?
“Militarily defeating the insurgents” is, and has always been, a job the military cannot do — without the imposition of an Occupation Police State.
Only Iraqis can stop the terrorists.
“Freedom without order” is a good complaint, but a question of balance. Do you think there’s enough “order” for you to walk alone in Harlem at midnight, or do you lack that freedom?
There’s a balance; I doubt that most liberals will be happy with the first few elections in Iraq at where the balance is.
August 13th, 2005 at 2:47 pm
Hmm, maybe you meant this NYT Kirk Semple note?
(insta-Ann)
http://nytimes.com/2005/08/13/international/middleeast/13soldier.html?hp&ex=1123992000&en=ba6d79195f5a1956&ei=5094&partner=homepage
August 13th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
But hey, if garbage “analysis� like this also serves to confuse the enemy, that will partially make up for its self-serving mischaracterizations.
Maybe that’s precisely the purpose of the Bush administration’s “conflicting signals” the WaPo is griping about – to confuse the enemy. As I’ve pointed out before, keeping the enemy guessing is Warfare 101 stuff.
August 13th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
Jeez Tom…come on. You’re above these examples. And considering I’ve done this before, I obviously have a very specific opinion. You’re comparing apples and oranges here. Respectfully, this is extremely clumsy at best. I think you’ll find that the fears we’ve been fed in the media are pretty much unfounded.
And yes, we’ve been hearing news (I can’t point to it right now because I don’t have time) that insurgency is becoming less and less succesful. However, multiple deaths are rising. So while the number is going down, the quantity during single incidents are going up. I think perhaps that fewer dead is “good news”, but it’s also a matter of perspective. What’s also going on right now is nothing aking to wandering around in a “bad” neighborhood at night. It’s as ridiculous as Brit Hume comparing Iraq to California.
However, mixed messages are what I’ve come to expect from this administration, so this doesn’t really surprise me. It’s just makes me worried that it will embolden the terrorists and therefore, hurt the Iraqi people’s chances to truly live in a free society.
August 13th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
“As I’ve pointed out before, keeping the enemy guessing is Warfare 101 stuff.”
Precisely. I think I mentioned this in another thread here…
http://donklephant.com/2005/08/10/sitzkriegs-end/#comment-1123
(’bout halfway down)
My main complaint about this is that either (a) WaPo and ilk are too stupid to understand this or (b) they understand it and choose to write garbage like this anyway. In both cases they do it solely to destroy faith in our leadership, purely for partisan reasons. The result: the terrorist insurgency is emboldened by being shown survey results indicating that “we” have a low approval rating regarding the war and that “we” think it was wrong to depose Saddam, etc., etc., ad nauseam. This encourages the terrorists to keep blowing things up, as they think they’re “winning”.
August 14th, 2005 at 12:34 pm
[...] More bad news is that all of the sources for this story will only talk under condition of anonymity. That means they’re covering their asses. Of course the official company line will probably not own up to these things, but it’s almost too late for them not to. Once leaks like this starting appearing in the dam, the flood of information isn’t far behind. And that’s also why the messaging hasn’t been lining up as of late. I wrote about this just yesterday. [...]